London. An apartment
of the Prince’s.[Enter the PRINCE OF WALES
and FALSTAFF]
FALSTAFF
Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE HENRY
Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack
and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to
demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.
What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the
day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes
capons and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the
signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself
a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no
reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to
demand the time of the day.
FALSTAFF
Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take
purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not
by Phoebus, he,’that wandering knight so fair.’ And,
I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as, God
save thy grace,–majesty I should say, for grace
thou wilt have none,–
PRINCE HENRY What, none?
FALSTAFF No, by my troth, not so much as will
serve to prologue to an egg and butter.
PRINCE HENRY Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.
FALSTAFF Marry, then, sweet wag,
when thou art king, let not
us that are squires of the night’s body be called
thieves of the day’s beauty: let us be Diana’s
foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the
moon.
PRINCE HENRY Thou sayest well, and it holds well too;
for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and
flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is,
by the moon. As, for proof, now: a purse of gold
most resolutely snatched on Monday night and most
dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning;
now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder
and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.
FALSTAFF By the Lord, thou sayest true, lad.
–But, I prithee, sweet
wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when
thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is
with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do
not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.
PRINCE HENRY No; thou shalt.
FALSTAFF Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge.
PRINCE HENRY
Thou judgest false already: I mean, thou shalt have
the hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.
FALSTAFF Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps
with my humour as well as waiting in the court,
I can tell you.
PRINCE HENRY For obtaining of suits?
FALSTAFF Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the
hangman hath no lean wardrobe. ‘Sblood,
I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear.
PRINCE HENRY Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.
FALSTAFF Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
PRINCE HENRY What sayest thou to a hare,
or the melancholy of Moor-ditch?
FALSTAFF Thou hast the most unsavoury similes and
art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young
prince. But, Hal, I prithee, trouble me no more with vanity.
I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of
good names were to be bought. An old lord of the council
rated me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I
marked him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I
regarded him not; and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.
PRINCE HENRY Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the
streets, and no man regards it.
FALSTAFF O, thou hast damnable iteration and art indeed able
to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon
me, Hal; God forgive thee for it! Before I knew
thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man
should speak truly, little better than one of the
wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give
it over: by the Lord, and I do not, I am a villain:
I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in Christendom.
PRINCE HENRY Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
FALSTAFF ‘Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I’ll make one;
an I do not, call me villain and baffle me.
PRINCE HENRY I see a good amendment of life in thee;
from praying to purse-taking.
FALSTAFF Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal; ’tis no sin for a
man to labour in his vocation.
[Enter POINS]
Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a
match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what
hole in hell were hot enough for him?
PRINCE HENRY Good morrow, Ned.
POINS Good morrow, sweet Hal.
What says Monsieur Remorse?
what says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack! how
agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou
soldest him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira
and a cold capon’s leg?
PRINCE HENRY Sir John stands to his word, the devil
shall have his bargain; he will give the devil his due.
POINS Then art thou damned for keeping
thy word with the devil.
PRINCE HENRY Else he had been damned
for cozening the devil.
POINS But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning,
by four o’clock, early at Gadshill! there are pilgrims
going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders
riding to London with fat purses: I have vizards
for you all; you have horses for yourselves:
Peto lies to-night in Rochester: I have bespoke
supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap: we may do it
as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff
your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry
at home and be hanged.
FALSTAFF Hear ye, Yedward;
if I tarry at home and go not,
I’ll hang you for going.
POINS You will, chops?
FALSTAFF Hal, wilt thou make one?
PRINCE HENRY Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.
FALSTAFF There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good
fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood
royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.
POINS Sir John, I prithee, leave the prince and me alone:
I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure
that he shall go.
FALSTAFF
Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him
the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may
move and what he hears may be believed, that the
true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false
thief; for the poor abuses of the time want
countenance. Farewell: you shall find me in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HENRY Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell,
All-hallown summer!
[Exit Falstaff]
POINS Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us
to-morrow: I have a jest to execute that I cannot
manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto and Gadshill
shall rob those men that we have already waylaid:
yourself and I will not be there; and when they
have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut
this head off from my shoulders.
PRINCE HENRY
How shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINS Why, we will set forth before or after them.
PRINCE HENRY Yea, but ’tis like that they will know us
by our horses, by our habits and by every other
appointment, to be ourselves.
POINS Tut! our horses they shall not see: I’ll tie them
in the wood; our vizards we will change after we
leave them: and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram
for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.
PRINCE HENRY
Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.
POINS Well, for two of them, I know them to be as
true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the
third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll
forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the
incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will
tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at
least, he fought with; what wards, what blows, what
extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this
lies the jest.
PRINCE HENRY Well, I’ll go with thee: provide us
all things necessary and meet me to-morrow night
in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell.
POINS Farewell, my lord.
[Exit Poins]
PRINCE HENRY I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish’d for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
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